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Back to list Concerning My Daughter (aka About Daughter)

Director’s Profile

Film director Boo Jiyoung is a graduate of the Korean Academy of Film Arts (KAFA). Her first feature film, Sisters on the Road (2008), was invited to film festivals including Busan International Film Festival 2008, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2009, Seoul International Women’s Film Festival 2009 and Tokyo International Women’s Film Festival 2009, and earned awards for Best Director and Best Screenplay at the Women In Film Korea Festival 2009. Her second feature, Cart (2014), was invited to various film festivals, including Toronto International Film Festival 2014, International Film Festival Rotterdam 2015, Udine Far East Film Festival 2015 and Busan International Film Festival 2014, and was selected among the year’s 10 best films at the Korean Association of Film Critics Awards 2015. She is currently working on her third feature film, About Daughter.

Synopsis

Jeongeun, who works as a care worker at a nursing hospital for the elderly, hears from her daughter, Saein, who demands money for her security deposit. But Jeongeun can’t afford to help. When she is compelled to let Saein stay at her place, Saein takes the liberty of moving in together with her partner, Inae. Saein, a part-time university lecturer and Inae, a chef, are a lesbian couple of 7 years. Jeongeun, unable to accept their relationship, faces a series of inconveniences and conflicts which she can only complain about in monologue fashion to Jaeshin, whom she is taking care of at the nursing hospital. Jaeshin has spent a lifetime tending to those on the fringes of society, but has ended up a lonely, old lady with Alzheimer’s. With both her finances and her medical condition in decline, the hospital devises a plan to send her to a cheaper nursing home. Meanwhile, Jeongeun discovers wounds on Saein’s face and body and starts interrogating her daughter until Saein explodes and storms out of the house. Jeongeun soon learns that Saein is fighting against the university, which suddenly fired her along with a few other part-time colleagues. One night, Jeongeun is looking for Saein at the school but gets swept up in a fiery protest, becoming victim and also witness to violence caused by anti-gay protesters, in which Saein and her colleagues are badly injured. Meanwhile, she learns Jaeshin has been sent to another nursing home while she was away, and sets out to find her.

Achievements

2023 Busan International Film Festival - CGV Award, Actor of the Year
2023 Seoul Independent Film Festival - Audience Award, CGK Best Cinematography Award(Cinematographer KIM Ji-ryong)
2023 Incheon Human Rights Film Festival
2024 Marie Claire Film Festival
2024 Korea Queer Film Festival - Closing Film
2024 Muju Film Festival - Best Director
2024 Chuncheon Film Festival
2024 Jeongdongjin Independent Film Festival - Cling-Clang Coin Awards
2024 Seoul International Women′s Film Festival
Released in Korea

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